For a number of years, there has been a trend toward the production of eggs by automated equipment. Customarily, this equipment includes a bank of cages for confining the poultry, automated feeding and watering apparatus associated with the cages, and conveyors for collecting eggs produced by the poultry and conveying them to one end of the cage bank for subsequent transfer to various processing equipment. Apparatus is provided in the cage bank for removing manure generated by the confined hens.
Various types of cage assemblies have been proposed for this purpose. Some assemblies include two or more rows of cages stacked vertically in stairstep or pyramidal fashion with inclined dropping boards or deflecting shields located above the lower rows of cages. In other cage systems, such as the Cal-Aire system sold by the assignee of the present application, the cages are of a reverse configuration and are offset sufficiently in the horizontal direction as to eliminate completely the need for manure dropping boards. In yet other systems disclosed in the art, cages are stacked vertically one above the other and various types of manure handling devices are utilized to take care of the droppings from the caged hens.
While various prior art cage systems and manure handling apparatus have certain advantages, they also have certain limitations. For instance, while the stairstep or pyramidal cage arrangements provide a reasonable density of hens per linear foot of cage, the overall width of the cage systems at the base requires more floor space than if the cages were stacked vertically one above the other. With the costs of constructing poultry houses increasing, it should be apparent that there is a demand for a poultry cage system which permits a maximum density of birds to be housed within a minimum of floor space within the poultry house while having an overall height which is sufficiently low as to enable a workman to be able to reach into the cages in the uppermost rows.
An example of a pyramidal stacked deck cage system utilizing manure scraping blades is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,783,829 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,768,442. Examples of vertically stacked cages utilizing fixed blade manure removal systems are set forth in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 2,309,458; 2,383,326; 2,448,120; 2,946,309; 2,805,644; 2,987,038; 2,970,567; 3,768,444; 3,810,444; and 3,867,903. Examples of tractor-mounted manure scrapers designed to scrape the floor beneath poultry cages are set forth in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,160,141 and 3,662,420, the latter patent disclosing the use of an auger for displacing manure laterally with respect to the path of movement of the tractor. A barn floor cleaner utilizing an auger which pivots about a vertical axis in a circular path is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,021,819.
While each of the various patented cage systems and manure handling devices may function satisfactorily for its intended purpose, none provides a high-density cage system which requires a minimum of poultry house floor space yet which is capable of being serviced readily by a workman. Moreover, none provides such a cage system which provides a free flow of air among the caged hens so as to insure adequate ventilation, and none discloses manure removal apparatus which operates efficiently in a minimum of space to clear manure from beneath stacked poultry cages.